Didion's Blue NIghts

 

Blue Nights, published in 2011, is the first book that I have read by Joan Didion.  It is a memoir in which Didion mourns the loss of her daughter, Quintana Roo, who passed away at the age of 39.  It is an honest, wrenching book in which the author examines the complexities of motherhood and aging, as well as the responsibility and struggle to do enough and to do right by the people we love.  I would be interested in reading one of her novels, but I was not particularly drawn in by her fragmented and sparse writing style.

Introducing Gin Phillips

I learned about Gin Phillips' novel The Well and the Mine from IndieBound's website.  As it turns out, this was perfect timing for me to read Phillips' first book, as her second book (which I definitely want to read), entitled Come In and Cover Me, was released in January 2012, meaning I won't have to wait long to enjoy more of Phillips' work.  The Well and the Mine explores issues of race and class in a coal mining town in Alabama during the Great Depression.  The story is told from five different perspectives which represent all the members of the Moore family.  This was a very readable, engaging story that deals with social issues but also explores the intimate relationships within a family and a small town. 

Hard to put down, hard to like: IQ84

Haruki Murakami is one of my favorite authors, so I was very excited to read IQ84 as my first book of 2012.  At nearly 1,000 pages it is a behemoth of a book, and yet, not epic.  When I read such a large book, I usually expect that it will be a multi-generational sweeping tale with detailed descriptions and intricate story lines.  Yet, here Murakami focuses on a few characters within landscapes (both real and surreal, of course, as Murakami usually does), that feel sparse and cold.  IQ84 is very readable, and for that reason I found it hard to put down.  One the other hand, I found the ending very lackluster.  All in all, if you haven't read Murakami I would suggest starting with Norwegian Wood (soon to be released as a movie) and Kafka on the Shore.  As The New York Times wrote recently, Murakami certainly does have a "fierce imagination," and that is what makes him such a widely read author with almost a cult following, but for me, there was not enough to grab on to emotionally with IQ84.

Armchair travel: Around the World in 80 Days

Around the World in 80 Days, by French author Jules Verne, is a quick, enjoyable, and lighthearted read that recounts the tale of Phileas Fogg's circumnavigating the globe in eighty days as a result of a wager.  While the storyline was predictable, it is nonetheless a fun book to read.  Perhaps more interesting is to mention the time in history in which the book was written.  The novel was published in 1872, soon after three major technological breakthroughs came to fruition which would ultimately enable one to travel across the globe - the completion of the First Continental Railroad in the U.S., the linking of a railway system across India, and the opening of the Suez Canal.  This made for a good adventure tale, but I did not find the writing particularly sophisticated or memorable. 

Just can't get enough (of Steinbeck)

If you were to ask me what author to read right now, Steinbeck would be at the very top of my list.  He is simply a master of creating immensely readable and interesting stories that tackle larger subjects such as race, class, and socioeconomic status while also exploring intimate relationships among families, workers and friends.  Quite unlike the breadth of East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath (which are two of my favorite books of all time), Of Mice and Men is of much narrower focus, and is what Steinbeck himself coined as a "playable novel," that is, a novel that can also be read as a play due to its heavy emphasis on dialogue.  This short novel (you can easily read it in one sitting), tells the story of George and Lennie, two friends who stick together as they travel around California to find work as laborers.  The book explores themes of loneliness, hope, and friendship, and depicts the daily life of the laboring class during the Great Depression.  While I think it is an important piece of work and still relevant today (see the link to a recent article in the New York Times below), it is not my favorite of Steinbeck's works.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/education/studying-steinbeck-new-jersey-students-find-common-ground.html?_r=1&ref=johnsteinbeck

Back in the (Victorian) day: Dickens!

My last memory of Dickens was reading A Tale of Two Cities in high school.  I have noticed that an increasing number of book reviews make reference to a cast of "Dickensian" characters.  Curious to know what this meant, I decided to pick up this great edition of Great Expectations published by Vintage Classics in 2012, for the nifty price of $7.00!  In this famous tale, Dickens tells the story of the iconic Pip, an orphan who grows up in a working class household, destined to be a blacksmith until a mysterious benefactor grants him the opportunity to become a "gentleman."  This is a wonderful bildungsroman, which not only tells the story of Pip's coming of age, but also explores such themes as social class and loyalty.  Also, Dickens includes many characters and describes them with panache, for example, referring to one character's "walnut-shell countenance," another one's "sawdusty fragrance," and my favorite, the "Pumblechookian elbow."  I also liked this sentence - "Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts."  The novel moved along quickly and held my interest, though it did drag toward the end.  While this wasn't a standout read for me, I'm glad I reacquainted myself with this classic author considered to be essential to any reader's literary canon. 

All in a Day's Work: Alain de Botton's Take on Our Occupations

Alain de Botton is a Swiss writer who tackles a variety of contemporary issues with a philosophical bent, from travel to love to status, referencing everyone from Plato to Zadie Smith in his writing.  In this work, de Botton takes on the complexities and daily foibles of the modern workplace.  When I picked up The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work in the hope of coming to a more sophisticated understanding of my parachute color, I was not expecting so much wit to be infused in his writing.  de Botton incorporates elements of sociology and ethnography by choosing several subjects to shadow and interact with on the theme of work.  From an accounting office to the countryside, he follows his subjects while shedding light on and and attempting to make sense of how our occupations and workplace can both nurture and damage our souls.  de Botton writes about the increased distance from knowing the makers of products, the disconnect from nature and the customers we serve, and the increasing intangibility of production (pointing out that it used to be that one could "step back at the end of  a day or lifetime and point to an object" and now how we more often produce "projects which long ago evaporated into nothing one could hold or see").  Some other great comments:

"We were now deep in the era of the technological sublime, when awe could most powerfully be invoked not by forests or icebergs but by supercomputers, rockets, and particle accelators.  We are now almost exclusively amazed by ourselves." 

About the field of logistics coordination (regarding strawberries, in particular), he writes, "An improbable number of grown-ups have been forced to subordinate their sloth, to move pallets across sheds and wait in rumbling diesel lorries in traffic to bow to the exacting demands of soft plump fruit."  

"We might define art as anything which pushes our thoughts in important yet neglected directions."   

While I found de Botton's book to be quite interesting and entertaining, it was not revelatory.  Nonetheless, his writing style and the glimpses he offers into different types of work held my interest all the way through.  It also makes me happy to know that there are undercurrents of getting back to the way production used to be years ago as there has been an influx in recent years of small-production craftsmanship and entrepreneurship ranging from goods on Etsy, to artisan ice cream, to hand built bicycles. 

River Ruminations: Short stories by Rick Bass

There's something captivating about rivers - the sheer force and beauty of them, the ability they have to offer us new beginnings or bring tragic endings.  Rivers feature prominently in so many books, symbolic of change, the passage of time, and the power of nature over man.  I've read several books over the last few years in which a river is a central feature, for example, Ron Rash's Saints at the River and Bonnie Jo Campbell's Once Upon a River.  Rick Bass' Platte River is comprised of three short stories which include rivers in the landscape, and yet, the rivers seemed to be more ancillary than central to each story.  While each tale had some beautiful images, for example, people skating along a melting river under the moonlight and jumping over sections where the water had melted, I just couldn't really get lost in the atmosphere of Bass' stories.  Bass' imagery is well-written, but the characters fell flat and the currents of the rivers weren't strong enough for me.

The Heart of Nebraska: Tom McNeal's New Novel

Tom McNeal's second novel, To Be Sung Underwater, is perhaps the perfect "end of summer" read.  McNeal has written one of the most romantic, lush, and surprising love stories I have read in a long time.  Judith Toomey, raised in Vermont, spends the summer with her father in Nebraska shortly after her parents separated.  She meets Willy Blunt, raised on a farm and working as a carpenter.   The two spend an idyllic summer together in far-reaching pastoral corners of the Nebraska plains.  The story weaves between Judith's life as an adult living in Los Angeles married to a successful banker and the telling of her first experience of love that fated summer in Nebraska.  The novel explores how we either let go of or hold on to what has shaped us.  

The New York Times recently had a feature on McNeal's beautiful home amidst the orange groves of Southern California.  Interestingly, the airy, colorful, peaceful photos of his home seem to align with the style of his writing.  His home is downright gorgeous, just like his novel.  Check out these fabulous photos:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/09/garden/at-home-with-tom-mcneal-an-imagination-with-built-ins.html?pagewanted=all

Review: The Last Brother

The Last Brother, written by Nathacha Appanah, a French-Mauritian of Indian origin, is an exquisitely written novel.  I was captivated from the first word to the last by Appanah's poetic but accessible language.  There were many sentences I read over and over again.  Appanah writes of extremes - unfathomable poverty and unrelenting violence, selfless friendship and fierce motherly love.  Just when you think the story is going to leave you broken, Appanah infuses the scene with an unexpectedly quiet or serene moment.  To give you a sense of Appanah's unique and strong voice, she writes, "I went and sat down by the vegetable plot and breathed in the forest with all my lungs, the green, ravaged scent of it, its strength as yet hardy resurgent following the cyclone, throwing my head back to open up my chest, and it seemed to me that I was inhaling the sky as well, the cloudless blue extent of it."  The simple act of a nine year-old boy breathing becomes a moment of grace and peace, and we as the reader breathe along with him.  Another sentence that I was struck by is "Silent tears coursed down his face in such a brutal manner that I was afraid this would never stop."  Brutality and tenderness in just a few words.  Appanah has written a small masterpiece.  I wouldn't miss this one.

Flying High with Beryl Markham

 

"It is really this that makes death so hard - curiosity unsatisfied," wrote Beryl Markham in her autobiography West with the Night.  Markham was British-born and raised in Kenya, where she had a childhood filled with freedom and an adulthood brimming with adventure.  She is considered a pioneer in aviation, as she was the first person to successfully cross the Atlantic Ocean from east to west.  Markham's writing is simply stunning.  She writes beautifully about the natural landscape, the wild animals she encounters, and the loneliness and exhilaration she feels flying over miles and miles of undeveloped Africa.  This is a beautiful book that held my attention from the very first page to the last.  Highly recommended!

Review: Music for Chameleons

I've been on a hiatus from reading, for lack of stumbling upon any real gems as of late.   I know they are out there, I just haven't had good luck recently!  So I did what needed to be done - delved into another wonderful book by the esteemed Mr. Capote.  Music for Chameleons is my favorite Capote book that I have read to date, because it shows off Capote's versatility as a master of the short story, a writer of witty dialogue, and a person intrigued with the darker side of the human soul.  The book is divided into three sections, the first being a few short stories, pitch-perfect of course.  Second, Capote included a factual account of a real crime (entitled "Handcarved Coffins") which is, on a smaller scale, similar to the type of writing he became famous for in In Cold Blood, and ends with what Capote called "Conversational Portraits" in which he captures with equal effortlessness the spirit of New Orleans, a day in the life of a house-cleaner in New York City, and an encounter with Marilyn Monroe, all focused on the dialogue between two or three main characters.  This book shows Capote off as a true craftsman of readable, edgy, varied, and brilliant literary creations.  Truly a gem!   

Review: Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self

Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, by Danielle Evans, is a very good collection of short stories which focus predominantly on young African-American or mixed-race men and women as they navigate intimate relationships with their families, friends, and lovers.  Of the eight stories, there were probably three that were stand-outs, though all of them are well-written, fresh, and insightful.  To get a sense of Evans' writing, she states, "We are all walking around on eggshells, waiting for a death the way people wait on rainstorms when the sky promises bad weather, but so far nobody has talked to me about it, and nobody has asked me to do anything more than make potato salad."  Her writing is simple, with zing and emotional punch.  Evans published her first story at the age of 23, is a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop, and currently teaches literature at American University.  I'm sensing that she is an up and coming literary star to watch out for, though we have yet to see what she can do in the realm of novels.

You really can't judge a book by its cover, after all

It has been a while since I have posted, but not for lack of trying.  Here are three books with alluring covers that I did not finish, simply because there are so many books on my "to read" list and I was disappointed with these so much so that I didn't want to invest the time to finish them.

Freedom - I remember really liking The Corrections, by Franzen, so I was excited to take on the mammoth Freedom.  I figured, the more Franzen, the better.  Plus, the New York Times Book Review raved about it.  After 226 pages, I could not continue.  I found the book to be without plot, the characters without redemption, and the editing completely lacking.  Perhaps the tides turned in the latter half of the book.

West of Here - A truly beautiful cover, plus, it is all about the Pacific Northwest, an area I love.  Alas, I made it through only about 20 pages of what I found to be an uninteresting and inauspicious beginning.  Again, I probably could have given this one more of a chance, but there are just too many books on my list, and it did not capture my interest.

Swamplandia! - I was intrigued by Swamplandia!  With its fairy tale-like, yet menacing cover, I was enticed.  Plus, Karen Russell was voted this past year as one of The New Yorker's "20 Under 40."  Furthermore, the plot sounded quite original - a family of alligator wrestlers living in the swamps of the Everglades, and a coming of age story with a female protagonist.  I read the first half of the book which I found inventive, but at the same time it dragged on and on.

Luckily, I think I have stumbled on a few books in the last week that have redeemed my appreciation and awe for good writing.  Soon to post!  

Review: Gold Boy, Emerald Girl

With only three books under her belt, Yiyun Li has already received many accolades - she was voted one of The New Yorker's "20 Under 40," was selected as a 2010 MacArthur Foundation fellow, and was chosen as one of Granta's "21 Best Young American Novelists."  Impressive! 

Li was born in Beijing in 1972 and moved to the U.S. (currently an Oakland resident!) in 1996.  She was trained as an immunologist and came to the U.S. to study medicine.  She ultimately decided to pursue writing and got her MFA from the Iowa Writer's Workshop.  Gold Boy, Emerald Girl is a collection of short stories written with sensitivity and gravitas.  Li's work provides insight into Chinese culture, and while her stories are contemporary, events of the past often shape them.  Yiyun Li is undoubtedly a talented writer.  I can't say that I immensely enjoyed reading these stories, but I learned from them and appreciated their subtlety and power.

Review: Lives of Girls and Women

Alice Munro is a wonderful writer, and, I imagine, a great short storyteller, but a novelist she does not seem to be.  Munro is known for her short stories, but being in the mood for a novel, I chose to read her only one to date, Lives of Girls and Women.  The book tells the story of Del Jordan, who comes of age in rural Ontario in the 1940s. 

Many of the sentences crafted by Munro I read more than once, they were that good.  For example, Munro writes,"...I felt remorse, that kind of tender remorse which has on its other side a brutal, unblemished satisfaction."  And also, "I had not had a friend before.  It interfered with freedom and made me deceitful in some ways, but it also extended and gave resonance to life."  The book didn't work as a cohesive novel, and is more of a series of disjointed vignettes.  I would recommend reading Alice Munro, but I would suggest you start with one of her short story collections.

Review: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind is an autobiography written by William Kamkwamba. Kamkwamba tells the story of his childhood in Malawi, growing up hungry and poor.  Since his family was not able to afford the school fees necessary to keep him enrolled in school, he began visiting a small library in his town and stumbled upon books about energy and physics.  The books inspired him to build a windmill.  With his resourcefulness and determination, Kamkwamba was able to build a windmill out of scrap metal and bicycle parts.  His hope was to bring electricity and running water to his town.  Having survived famine, Kamkwamba realized that a windmill could rotate a water pump which would allow for irrigation.  In addition, only 2% of Malawians have electricity, meaning that most Malawians are not able to be work or study after dark. Kamkwamba knew that if he could help to bring electricity to his town, it would increase productivity.

Kamkwamba's first windmill was able to light four light bulbs and power two radios in his home.  Soon, word spread of his invention, and Kamkwamba was invited to attend the annual TED (Technology, Environment, Design) conference, which brings together innovators from all over the world.  

This is a well-written, unflinching account of the power of innovation even in the face of seemingly impossible circumstances.  Kamkwamba now attends Dartmouth College.  His inspiring book reminds us that one person's ideas have the power to transform the world. 

The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay: Full of Heart

Beverly Jensen's The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay is a poignant, old-fashioned tale of two sisters, Idella and Avis, who grow up on a windswept, rocky bay in New Brunswick, and then move to Maine and Boston in early adulthood.  The book is a novel but each chapter could be a stand-alone short story.  The novel follows the more serious and dutiful Idella and the fiery and irreverent Avis through the course of their lives, starting with scenes from their childhood in 1916.  In the first chapter, "Gone," the girls lose their mother due to a mistake on the part of the country doctor who had given her the wrong pills for her pregnancy.  Their father Bill is left to figure out how to raise two girls amidst the toil of farm life.  Both Idella and Avis eventually leave the farm to forge independent lives.  The reader is so endeared by the two women that one finds oneself rooting for them, even as life still presents them with many challenges and hardships.  Throughout their lives, they are never quite dealt the hand we hope for them, but there is just enough humor and hope to make this book uplifting.  This is a book about loss and resilience, family and the landscapes that shape our lives.  It was an easy and absorbing read - a really good novel.  Beverly Jensen died of pancreatic cancer in 2003, and this is her only published work.

The Mountain Lion: A Coming of Age Classic

Jean Stafford, an award-winning short story writer and novelist,  wrote The Mountain Lion in 1947.  Stafford's work has been published in The New Yorker and she won a Pulitzer Prize for her collected short stories.  Yet, her work has been under the radar for many years.  The Mountain Lion was published again by the New York Review Books in 2010, and as a result, Stafford is once again garnering the attention her writing so clearly deserves.

The Mountain Lion tells the story of Ralph and Molly, siblings who grow up in a stodgy, genteel suburb with their prim and proper older sisters and mother.  But these two are not interested in the confines and routines of their daily life.  When they have the opportunity to start spending summers with their Uncle Claude who lives a rugged, wilder life on a ranch in Colorado, they are thrilled at the adventures that they believe await them.  As Ralph and Molly enter adolescence their strong bond becomes threatened as their innocence gives way to brooding and their individual searches for happiness, which seem to be elusive as the mountain lion that lives in the woods near the ranch.  Stafford has written a brilliant bildungsroman, complete with wit, sharpness, memorable characters, and a shocking ending.  So consider curling up with The Mountain Lion and a hot chocolate on this wintry day!

Bookseller by day, Writer by Night: Introducing Deborah Willis

Vanishing and Other Stories is a great debut from young Canadian author Deborah Willis.  Her short stories are written in simple, beautiful language and explore intimate relationships among friends, between lovers, and within families.  The two stand-out stories for me were "sky theatre," a story about a beautiful teenage girl who seems invincible but then falls from grace when an accident occurs, and a more ordinary girl who shares a pivotal moment with her.  The other stand-out story is "the separation," a story about two sisters with hippie parents ("raised on lentils, brown rice, Neil Young, and solstice celebrations") who decide to separate.  This was a very funny ("It was one thing to smoke weed that the neighbours grew.  But to support the big tobacco companies was out of the question."), tender, brilliantly written story.  In an addendum included in this print version, Willis writes an account of her double life as a bookseller and writer, and describes the moment when she sold the first copy of her book.  Her humility, as evidenced by all of her story titles written in lower case and her apparent wonderment at finding her writing in print, makes her a winsome author of whom I expect more great work to come.